Sympathetic Magick Method
Definition Sympathetic magick is based on the old occult adage “as above, so below.” What this means is that a magician employing sympathetic magick may create a change on the macrocosm by changing something microcosmically. When a voodoo priest stabs a voodoo doll with a pin and creates pain in a real person, he is performing sympathetic magick. It may not sound very “sympathetic,” but the larger world is being “sympathetic” to the change that took place in the smaller one. Prerequisites Sympathetic Magick and the Magician characteristic. Tools A sympathetic magician will need many tools, normally things he has lying around his home, in order to produce magickal effects. During playtesting, there was a character that used lit cigarettes and cigarette smoke as the tools of his trade. Most sympathetic magicians will only use one type of “prop” for their sympathetic magick, but they are not constrained to do so. Energy Energy is raised by means of repeating the action of attuning your instrument to build up power. For example, while attuning your instrument, you may repeatedly wave the item toward the target, or may spend the time sewing hair into a voodoo doll. Once the energy is raised, you can perform pretty much any effect without need for further energy simply by performing your actions on the effigy. Since there is really no range, or area, or duration to a sympathetic magick spell, there is a different means for calculating the amount of energy required. The GM will have to come up with a number that the magician is trying to beat, normally based on the attribute that the spell would be working against. If the spell is directed toward a person, it will normally be that person's Willpower, but if it were solely to make the person have bad luck it would be their Luck score, and if it were to injure or make them sick it would be their Fortitude. The magicina may still add energy points to increase the effect of the spell. For example, if it were impossible to attune the spell to a group of people, he could attune it to one person he knows will be in that group and then add enough energy points to cover an area around that person. Method There are two main steps in sympathetic magic. The first is to attune your instrument to the target. This is like adding the hair of your victim to a voodoo doll. The magician must find a way to connect the object being used either to the target or the effect. The second is to actually perform the act upon your effigy that will indicate your intention. At the first step, no roll is necessary. At the second step, make a Willpower roll modified by your Sympathetic Magick skill. This will indicate the strength of the spell effect. The instrument may be disentuned simply by waving a hand in front of it with the intention of removing the attunement, and the effect is immediate. ''Example: John used Sympathetic magick in the form of cigarette smoke as well as sigils and Invocation to perform his spells. At one point in time, he was speaking to a security guard and lit a cigarette. While they were talking, every time John said the word “notice” (which he dropped purposefully many times), he waved the cigarette in front of the guard. This was how he attuned his instrument. When he was done, he set the cigarette down on the ground and walked away. The guard didn’t even notice… he was too busy talking to the cigarette smoke!'' ''Example with Sigilism: John also built traps out of sigils and cigarettes. He once built a sigil that was empowered to keep whoever broke its seal trapped within it. He then lit a cigarette and placed it in the middle of the sigil. He and his party walked through it, mindful of the thin whisp of smoke rising into the air. When the enemy arrived, however, they were not aware of the secret, and ran through the middle of the seal, breaking the previously unbroken line of smoke. They were trapped!'' ''Example with Incantation: John would sometimes incorporate Incantation into his spells, which let him describe exactly what he wanted the spell effect to do. During one fight from which the party was forced to flee, John lit his cigarettes and held it in his mouth, breathing out the smoke all around him as he ran. As he did this, he repeated “May the mind of whoever breathes in this smoke be clouded and have their memory of my friends and I obscured.” As the enemy ran through the smoke trail he was leaving, they began to slow down and slowly turned to leave.'' Category:ESPER Category:Magick